American businessman John Rost has become the first to complete a new FAA-approved F-104 flight training program at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

The adventurer, pilot and CEO of Fiesta Insurance completed four training flights in the Mach 2+ Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, the same supersonic plane used to prepare Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts for space travel. His ground school and flight training was completed at NASA’s Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), providing an opportunity to use the same runway the Space Shuttle returned to after coming back from its space missions. Negotiations are continuing between Boeing and Embraer for the possible formation of a partnership that would be focused on commercial aviation. The negotiations are seen by the industry as at least partly a response to a recent deal between Airbus and Bombardier, in which the European planmaker acquired a majority stake in the Canadian company's CSeries airliners. The results of a study forecasting the U.S. supply of rotorcraft pilots and mechanics over the next 18 years has been released, confirming what many in our industry suspected. Unless there are some
fundamental changes in policy, outreach, scholarships, and access to financing, the helicopter industry faces large-scale deficits in the amount of available and qualified licensed and certificated pilots and mechanics. The study projects a shortage of 7,469 helicopter pilots in the United States between 2018 and 2036. For maintenance technicians, the numbers are even more concerning. The industry is projected to be short 40,613 certificated aviation mechanics in the United States between 2018 and 2036. All this -- and MORE in today's episode of Airborne!!!

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